Aleksei Chichibabin

Chichibabin, Aleksei Evgen’evich

Born Mar. 17 (29), 1871, in Kuzemin, in what is now Poltava Oblast; died Aug. 15, 1945, in Paris. Russian organic chemist. Academician of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (1928; corresponding member, 1926).

Chichibabin graduated from Moscow University in 1892. In 1909 he became a professor at the Moscow Higher Technical School. From 1930 to the end of his life he worked in France.

Chichibabin’s main works are devoted to the chemistry of nitrogen-containing heterocyclic compounds, primarily pyridine. He developed a method of obtaining pyridine derivatives by the condensation of aldehydes and ketones with ammonia. He was the first to produce ct-aminopyridine, by the action of sodium amide on pyridine (Chichibabin reaction). He investigated its properties and studied the tautomerism of aminopyridine and hy-droxypyridine. He also determined the structure of many alkaloids and other plant substances, such as pilocarpine, santonine, and bergenin, and synthesized them. Chichibabin is also known for his work on free aromatic radicals and his method of synthesizing aldehydes by means of organomagnesium compounds.

Chichibabin contributed a great deal to the creation of the Soviet chemical-pharmaceutical industry. He was the author of the textbook Basic Principles of Organic Chemistry (1925; 7th ed., vol. 1, 1963). Chichibabin was awarded the V. I. Lenin Prize (1926).

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